25 Things Worth Knowing About the New Pope

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1. He’s Argentinian, making him the first pope from South America (or anywhere in the Westernhemisphere).

2. He’s the first JesuitPope.

3. He was the first Jesuit archbishop of BuenosAires.

4. He has taken the name Pope Francis. (Update:Not Francis I yet. “It will become Francis I after we have a Francis II,” the Vatican said.) It’s the first time a new pope has taken a name that hasn’t already been used by a former pope since Pope Lando in913.

18. His “critics say he did not take a strong enough stand against Argentina’s 1976-83 military dictatorship,” but he “in 2000, he led an effort by the church seeking public forgiveness for its inaction.”

19. Was accused by a human rights lawyer in 2005 of being complicit in the kidnapping of two priests by Argentina’s military dictatorship in 1976. The priests “surfaced five months later, drugged and seminude, in a field outside Buenos Aires.” The AP reported that, “according to some accounts, Bergoglio was instrumental in winning freedom for the men.” Bergoglio denies anywrongdoing.

21. Is a critic of the International Monetary Fund and free-market capitalism for contributing topoverty.

22. Demanded that an art exhibit that “depicted images of Catholic saints, Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary in a blender, an electric toaster and a frying pan, among other unconventional settings” be shut down, calling it“blasphemous.”